Reflections
by PossessedTypewriter
Summary: "Ciel, in a full length mirror, seemed taller than the real Ciel. And it irritated him." Ciel finds his looking-glass annoying and his butler saves his jacket. A fire starts downstairs and putting on an eye-patch is much harder than it sounds. All the while, Ciel is taking a good hard look at himself in said mirror. Oneshot. No pairings. Cover image by me.


_I do not own Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler), Kuroshitsuji was created by Yana Toboso and is serialised by Square Enix and distributed by Funimation Entertainment and Bandai._

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_**Reflections – Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler)**_

Ciel, in a full length mirror, seemed taller than the real Ciel. And it irritated him.

"Sebastian, on the next trip to London, we are acquiring a new mirror."

Sebastian was unfolding his jacket in the mirror's reflection and the butler turned to face him with his false smile, "Indeed, young Master."

Ciel, satisfied and unsatisfied, crossed his arms and looked at the mirror in simmering frustration. Observing the room from the mirror was to be more rewarding than observing a room normally, it seemed. Everything appeared to be roomier in a mirror, then at the edge there is a clear world's end, and there is no escaping that end.

Ciel shook his head, letting the thoughts banish. He was thinking too deep into this, he disliked the mirror, he did not find it deep and mystifying. People who found so called 'deepness' and 'connection' with something futile were in of themselves empty and connectionless fools - and Ciel was no art critic. He was not so childish, even if it was expected from the thirteen year old to be innocent and imaginative, Ciel doubted he was ever either of those things himself.

"Are you troubled, my Lord?" Sebastian cooed from the drawers, after a pause where Ciel didn't answer, he continued, "Is it the mirror?"

Ciel targeted his servant's _concerned_ Butler had the innocence and charm that passed for the rest of the population, but Ciel and seen and still saw beneath the mask and he could tell the demon was never truly too far away. And the demon had never learnt to fear - much less fear for another. Ciel had learnt quickly to see through the demon's façade of care.

"Just get my jacket. And be silent and quick about it." Ciel snapped in perfect monotone. The demon never learnt to fear - but it knew how to take his orders.

Sebastian smiled, head tilting to the side, and started preparing Ciels' jacket in double time. It needed to be re-stitched in the shoulder thanks to Finny's foolhardy gardening with a rake this morning, his strength proved too much for the tool and it snapped in half, flying across the garden and missing Ciel's head by a mere miracle. Or maybe it was the flying object that knocked the rakes' head off course enough to have a perfect miss.

Ciel learnt that the demon did what he could get away with; he was, in instances, perfectly allowed to keep him at the razors edge if it seemed he could get away with it.

However, it was then that Finny leapt from the bushes in his attempt to catch the rake before it hit Ciel, which it did not, and Finny had scratched his jacket with his boot.

Needless to say, Finny was past trying not to cry and was apologising profusely even before Sebastian's arrival with his '_gaze of _rapture'. Finnian knew what he had done wrong and Mei-Rin and Bard tried to help take the fall of his accident with the oddest excuses ever put to words. It was moments when they were literally on their knees, below him in all respects, that he could not tell who he was anymore. The towering Master or the kind collector of fellow lost souls like himself.

Finnian was not punished; Ciel did not feel it was in him to penalize the childish servant for being himself. Finnian, above all, had a good, loyal and strong heart. Ciel was not a person cruel enough to hate that, even if it almost backlashed onto himself.

"My Lord, I don't mean to break an order, but, I must insist you lift your head up for when I put on the eye-patch."

Ciel broke out of his reverie, his world blurring back into place. Somehow, he had started staring at the floor. Looking at his butler with slight annoyance, he coughed his throat thoroughly and adjusted his collar, and with his remaining dignity, lifted his head high.

Sebastian went behind him and Ciel looked, once again, at the lying mirror. The mirror showed his left eye, perfect in blue hues kept in plain sight while his right eye a corrupted purple core was being hidden by a piece of firm black leather on a thin, but tight, string.

Ciel looked at Sebastian in the falsifying mirror. The smiling servant began to tie the string at the back of his head for him when Ciel had an impulse. Ciel snapped his arm upwards toward his servant with the palm open.

"Sebastian, leave the eye-patch to me. Go back to the jacket."

Sebastian lost the false smile but his eyes failed to change, standing straight and bowing, he simply said "Understood." The butler passed the black eye-patch into his Master's hand and Ciel watched him leave from the looking-glass. His servant was last seen leaving the mirror's deceitful world when his face a slight instant, Ciel thought he might have seen him sneer, or was it a grin? Or was it him, or did his demon just truly… smile?

Ciel banished the thought away as soon at came to being. The demon had no thoughts on why a smile was even in existence, yet alone when or why it was used. Contract or no contract, a demon will always have nothing in this world of humans to smile for.

Ciel fiddled with the eye-patch, trying to get the patch itself to stop spinning in the sling long enough to put it into the correct position on his face. Compared to Sebastian, he looked as if a fumbling fool was trying to juggle fire. Finally, Ciel found the balance of weight, and started trying to navigate the eye-patch to his right eye without incident. His hands were good when they were trained, calligraphy and such was an art taught to him over many years and Ciel had mastered it. Attempting to co-ordinate his hands in a way he had never done so before shocked him at his inability to do so much as find its centre of balance. He glared at his own eyes as he kept trying again and again to put the black leather on correctly in a dignified manner.

Ciel was thirteen, neither child nor a proper man, but a ruler of an estate. He was a chess master, a plotter and dedicated servant of Queen Victoria. Accomplishing impossible tasks of strategy was his absolutely, but putting on a mere eye-patch was impossible for him absolutely? How absolutely absurd!

Ciel glared the taller version of himself which he envied and saw a person that looked incapable, useless and foolhardy. A person, who's only redeeming feature seemed to be a purple eye with an intricate arcane circle screaming its existence with its own glaring obviousness. It was a contract written, signed and sealed on his eye portraying its own permanency. At times, to Ciel it seemed like a spider's web, a circular, infinite and the perfect trap for a human to fall into.

Something hit the carpet floor, but to Ciel in his rather introspective philosophic state of mind, it sounded louder than the inside of a church bell. Looking down, the black eye-patch was sprawled on the floor. Ciel disliked humiliation, but worse for him was his loathing of failure. Especially something as undeniably trivial as putting an eye-patch on oneself!Ciel, scowling, kneeled downwards, knowing full well Sebastian was probably watching and was maybe partially humoured (if a demon could ever truly feel humour). Ciel bent down and picked up the eye-patch, but before he stood back up, his eyes found and met his own in the looking-glass yet again.

However, at this odd moment with the light primed perfectly and the mirror so deviously planning to turn Ciel mad, his right eye was seemingly glowing. At that instant, the accursed eye was not a curse, a fate, or a branding worse than the one burned above his hip; when illumined, his right eye seemed almost…

"Young Master, do you need something?"

Cut off again from his thoughts, Ciel was aggravated and vulnerable in his state of failure of a basic task and lack of composure. Standing up stiffly, Ciel closed his eyes and lineated his thoughts. "Sebastian, was not my latest order to both finish fixing my jacket and to be silent?"

Ciel took the silence as Sebastian understanding he did not want to be interrupted. Ciel could not see Sebastian in the mirror's world of tricks, nor did he need to. His butler was, is, and always will be watching over him in earnest. Ciel did not need to see he was there to know that as much as he needed to fall into philosophy by simply trying to put on a blasted eye-patch in front of a false reflection of himself. Ciel was always assured that his life was non-fictional, never needing conformation on what he was or who he was. Be his life as much a lie as his image in in the mirror, he could care less. At least his life felt worthy of being lived in and was above all else his own.

Otherwise he may as well return to those cold dog cages.

Ciel blinked, he had stared again. He had thought again. He had gone deep into another stupid world of thought. Curse on the mirror, he didn't need this constant distraction! He just needed to put on a black eye-patch. It was simple, he had seen it thousand and another thousand times done to him. Sebastian would take the patch and gently smother the purple eye over, then his hands would glide across to the string and pull it around the head like he was cupping a bird, and over and under the string would slowly begin to tighten around his head as Sebastian tied it together - like a master seamstress would thread needle! And he would do this until it was tight enough to stay on his head but not so much so it hurt his temples. And he always did it perfectly, each and every time for as long as Ciel had needed an eye-patch, Sebastian was there! And he tied it like that! Exactly like-

That…

Ciel took a moment to realise what had occurred while he was imagining, letting go of the bow he had tied at the back of his head, he slowly put his hands at his sides and looked again at the goddamned mirror. The eye-patch covered his right eye and there was no air opening or fault obvious. Ciel Phantomhive felt… rather proud of himself now.

For some reason, his reflection was smiling rather softly back. Now the mirror had done it, it was absolutely, without a doubt, the _worst _liar he had ever had the misfortune to cross. Ciel concluded that as sooner he could rid himself of this mirror the better it would be for both him and his mind.

Then again, this is the same mirror that made him seem taller than he really was, and made Sebastian look like he was smiling too. Ciel frowned; it was merely a trick of the light.

However…

"Sebastian," Ciel tore his eye away from the mirror and saw the butler, busying himself with stitching on a wooden chair,stopping to look up at his Master, "is my jacket complete?"

Another stitch was pulled and the thread seemed to cut itself away from the mended area. "It is, indeed, complete."

Ciel crossed his arms over the other, "Then don't tarry, put it on me already."

Sebastian took the jacket neatly folded in his forearm and Ciel's eyes returned to the mirror just as the demon entered its lie. Ciel lifted him arms out and the sleeves were pulled on by Sebastian one at a time. Sebastian then fixed the collar and the tie into perfect order, and Ciel would doubt there was any difference in the way he looked now as when he was originally dressed this morning. The jacket did not fail to seem, once again, like it had never been sullied. Once again, there was no imperfection on the jacket. The jacket of which had probably been torn and destroyed so many times there was in all likelihood no stitch of the original jacket remaining.

"You put your eye-patch on well, my Lord." Sebastian commented.

Ciel, indignant once again, crossed his arms over his chest with his head tilted in annoyance, "Of course."

"However, my Lord, the hair is pinned rather unfashionably - and the knot is slightly loose."

Ciel opened his eyes at the mirror, and positively glowered at Sebastian from it. "It is fine, Sebastian. There is only five hours left to the day and I am assured I can weather a mere five hours."

"You are assured?" Sebastian tried to send out a 'lifeboat' for Ciel it seems.

"I am absolutely assured."

The Master stood and the butler stood behind his shoulder. Sebastian, smiling for no-one with a hand over his 'heart', bowed behind him, "Of course."

Then it came, wafting under the door and chocking Ciel like a sudden rope around his throat.

"Smoke." Ciel deduced by the smell. The echo of a distressed sounding servant vibrated through the floorboards.

Sebastian had that look on his face, in the mirror; one would say it was completely innocent. Underneath, the demon was seething and foaming at the mouth; and something Ciel had no want to release on his poor, less immortal, servants of his household.

The butler bowed to Ciel hurriedly, "Excuse me, young master. There seems be a situation in the kitchen."

Ciel sighed, not exhaustedly, but more displeased sort of sigh. Like the sigh that showed - once again - that maybe it was not the best idea to hire Bard as the 'cook', who as such was also the one who insisted that, and Ciel quoted, '_Cooking is art, and art means explosions!_'

Ciel waved off Sebastian with a simple order to do what he must. Sebastian, as calmly as a hawk would descend upon prey, sprinted across Ciel's room. The heavy door made not even a clunk when it shut.

Ciel found himself rather bored, but the commotion heard below his was only as entertaining as listening to highly trained mice try to put out a candle. If not more.

"_Finny! Get the watering can over here!_" High pitched and worried, that was Mei-Rin's voice.

"_But it's on fire too…_" Finnian had no clue how to react.

"_Mei-Rin, I had three more gas canisters in there, help me get them out!_" Bard was trying to regain control.

"_Why do you have so much explosive gas?_" Finnian only asked the worst questions at horrible times.

"_For… Stuff!Screw it, Finnian, _you're_ not on fire, _you_ get the gas!_" Ciel could only guess.

"_Okay!_" No other words from Finny meant he had probably run off into the burning kitchen.

"_Uwaaaa!_"

"_What is it Mei- Uwaah! Sebastian's here!_"

"_Indeed I am, now, front and centre_." A pause occurred before Sebastian continued, "_Miss Mei-Rin, the hem of your uniform is on fire._"

"_Y-Yes, sir!It is!_"

"_Kindly put it out._"

"_I tried before, sir, but then my hair almost caught it, sir!_"

"_I'm back with the two gas cans already! The fire was close, but I saved them, Bard!_"

"… _TWO?_"

Ciel decided in the moments after the small subsequent explosion that it was better not to listen in to his servants at a time of a common household emergency.

Ciel sat in his room of which was slowly filling with smoke, deciding it was for the best, Ciel took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and placed it over his mouth. And slowly waited as he heard more screams of worry and smoke filled the room up faster and thicker as time slowly passed. His left eye began to sting at the same time as the heat could be felt through the floorings and the smoke was misting the room. The handkerchief was quickly becoming useless, yet, Ciel was not at all concerned. His butler would defy all sense and human limits to ensure success and perfection in everything. The fire would be put out within moments, the kitchen returned to working order within minutes and before the hour's end the problem was all but a memory with no trace.

In the meantime, however, the problem was interrupting the flow of his well-planned day. His blue eye started watering and Ciel wiped it away with the palm of his hand. The smoke in the room starting to deter his vision slightly. Trying to distinguish what he could and could not see, he found himself looking at the mirror yet again…

And paused, in this blurry misty state he saw a more warped reflection of himself than before even. It looked like him when he was younger, old enough for him to have been running through a burning manor for his parents again. Young enough to be perfectly happy and innocently lead his own life and not have any of this life. This him, that was only a few years apart, had no such fate as Ciel did. This is the him that would never have sold his soul for anything. Worst of all, he seemed to be so absolutely… _happy_. His smile was wide and… and…

If he envied his taller self painfully, he was in no way prepared for the agony that the image of this child brought him.

Ciel could not even bring himself to look at this. He wanted to run away from this. He had no desire to remember anything about what came before the fire. _Ever_.

He felt sick looking at this mirror, Ciel concluded within five seconds; and also within those five seconds, his course of action was planned out.

He turned behind him, found his cane, and threw it into the mirror. The glass shattered with five large pieces flopped to the floor gracelessly and what remained of the accursed mirror was only a web of cracks and lies.

Ciel did not need a mirror to tell him who he was a long time ago.

Within seconds of Ciel gasping for breath due on the floor, had Sebastian practically sailed through the doorway like the immovable shade he was. The smoke in the room seemed to retreat from the demons very presence as the air became perfectly breathable again.

Sebastian crouched on one knee before Ciel on the broken remains of the looking-glass, the remains of which were so small that they could not seem to break any further. Sebastian reached out to Ciel and sat the tired young master up from the smooth carpet.

"Young Master, the fire has been taken care of. The servants are removing the broken and burnt items and will return to their stations. Bard, for the time being, has been relocated to his dorm with minor burns."

Ciel swatted away Sebastian's helping hand with spite when he finally coughed out the harsh word "Fine."

Sebastian smiled slightly, "It seems as though we will need a new dressing mirror, my lord."

Ciel stood up with as much pride as he could muster at that moment. And Ciel paused again, taking in the fact that the mirror was still somewhat operational, but it was as such like looking at himself if he were a lightning strike caught in the flash; and his demon stood tall behind him as if the perfect looming dark cloud.

Ciel preferred that to the old mirror before it infinitely so, but still… "There is no rush, Sebastian. I am without need of a reflection yet."

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A/N) Well, what is there to say? I had the most awesome school project and I had too much fun doing it to notice I had far surpassed the 700 word minimal. However, since the teacher has yet to give back my mark after 3 months, I have decided to take matters into my own hands - and ask the awesome fandom how I did! The project was "_An average day in the life of an Anime character, present it as to define the characters._" Which, to my mind, translated into thus; "_THIS IS YOUR ONCE IN A LIFETIME CHANCE TO MAKE A FANFIC AND GET MARKED ON IT. SO DO IT GOOD._"

So, miserable failure? You don't need to comment or review or anything, I don't mind, really!

Hope many a reader got this far, I know my writing is boring as ****, but you made it this far! Congrats and happy days to you!

- PossessedTypewriter, re-checking how to spell to spell her own username since 2012.


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